Posts tagged ‘bush’

Sony DRM – worse than we thought

This entry has been edited for accuracy. The old version equated the current Sony DRM with the old Sony DRM rootkits, but they are two separate pieces of malware. This paragraph has been changed to correct this error. See the apposite comments for more information. It now appears that the CDs with Sony’s DRM technology on them (the CDs with rootkits have been recalled, so you luckily can’t get them any more, but other DRM’ed Sony CDs are still out on the market) will install their software even if you do not accept the EULA. Woah. This has definitely crossed some new sort of line that it hadn’t crossed before (and the old DRM rootkits had crossed several lines already). I hope Sony gets what’s coming to them…

On the terrorist front, the Bush administration appears to be afraid to defend its enemy combatant policy in front of the Supreme Court. One of these cases, in which a US citizen has been held without charges for 3 years on suspicion of planning to detonate a dirty bomb (he was recently charged, though these charges made no mention of such a bomb), has finally been appealed to the Supreme Court. In response, the Bush administration has attempted to move him to a civilian jail, rather than the military prison he is currently being held in (this would nullify any ruling that would otherwise be appealed to the Supreme Court). The Bush administration also tried to overturn a ruling which stated that the government could hold such people indefinitely (although this seems counterproductive at first, such an overturn would also keep this from going to the Supreme Court). The Bush administration’s actions on this case give the impression that they are afraid that the Supreme Court will rule against them in favor of basic civil liberties, and the administration appears to be trying their best to weasel out of this and continue holding citizens indefinitely. I really hope this hits the Supreme Court soon.

More news on the Supreme Court…

Now that Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination amid conservative attacks, Bush has nominated Samual Alito to be Justice O’Conner’s replacement on the Supreme Court. He appears to be about as conservative as Scalia. One very interesting point that this article brings up is that the conservatives have continually requested the due process of confirmation followed by an up-or-down vote to confirm justices, yet that is exactly what they avoided with Miers. We shall see how this plays out.

Finally, the Senate is doing something right!

The Senate has passed a bill to regulate military interrogation. This bill, if made into law, would keep the military from torturing prisoners of war. It would regulate the military so that we would no longer have problems like the human rights violations at Abu Ghraib and Quantanamo Bay. It would finally lay down consistent rules about what constitutes abuse of prisoners. Unfortunately, Bush has promised to veto it, since it would… umm… acknowledge that our enemies have basic human rights, too? The great thing about this bill, though, is that for the first time that I’ve noticed, both Democrats and Republicans have put aside their differences to pass a bill that both helps people and is genuinely (sadly) needed.

Greatest Bridge Club Ever…

Woah. Yesterday was bridge club again, and it was the highest turnout that we’ve had since I joined. We had 2 tables going pretty much the entire time. It’s not enough to play a “real” game of duplicate yet, but we at least had to start keeping score (with one table where the partnerships switch every hand, there’s not much point in keeping score). So… yeah. We had about 13 people show up over the course of the evening, and even kept playing past 1:00. Sherri and I were partners for much of the night, which was a bit weird. Over the summer, she played regularly with someone she met at home, and got the hang of his style. However, this was a bit different than the way I played, so we kept getting some of our signals crossed. Oh, well. When I have the opportunity to start getting competitive (which won’t be until next semester, due to Systems lab conflicting with the start of the Unit551 games), I’ll get a regular partner and we’ll work out all of our quirks. There were some pretty good hands, though, and I had a great time. Hopefully, we can get our Monday games going like this too.

Well, I watched the presidential debate tonight. To be honest, I wasn’t that impressed with either candidate. Kerry pretty much just said “I have a plan” a lot (but not actually saying what sort of plan this was, or how it would work), while Bush dodged most of the questions (he didn’t answer the question about who he would put on the Supreme Court, he didn’t answer what mistakes he’s made or how he corrected them, he didn’t answer how he will protect people’s rights from the PATRIOT Act, etc).

In related news, my absentee ballot arrived today. I’ve found the notary on campus, so I’m pretty much set to vote. I had a bit of a scare last week when I opened my absentee ballot that I’d been saving for a while to realize that it was for the primary election, rather than the upcoming one. After panicking and firing some frantic emails to my dad, he got me straightened out, and explained how I should be getting another ballot soon.

Lets see… Stephen alerted me to the Stop-Loss provisions that have gone into legislature recently. They pretty much say that you can’t leave the armed forces for 3 months before or after your company is deployed. Since companies are pretty much deployed every 6 months, many people who were supposed to finish up their service have been forced to stay in the armed forces. A pretty good blog about it is here (the October 2 update Edit: this one). There’s a lot of shit going on in this country these days. I wish there was something I could do about it, but this kind of crap just seems so widespread. If anyone has an idea about how to actually get something done (note: this does not involve writing to my senator’s intern’s garbage can), I’d love to hear about it.

News n’ such

So… it just occurred to me that I should put some national news up here again. At the moment, I’m reading through an article about the job crunch in America. Despite what our current administration is saying, the economy is still in a recession. People are still losing their jobs, and the few new jobs that have been created pay significantly less than the old ones. This makes me worried, because in 2 short years, I will be out of here, and looking for employment (or grad school, if things continue like this). This appears to be particularly grim, as it appears as though Bush will win again.

I wish I could find it again, but I can’t, so I will describe an article I read in the Star Tribune over the summer. This guy took data about every election since the Republican party last reinvented itself (as I recall, this was in the 1940’s), and correlated the party in power with every conceivable economic factor – GDP, unemployment, average income, tariff rates, stock markets, jobs created, inflation rates, national debt increases, governmental spending, you name it. With perfect correlation, every indicator he looked at was better for the democrats than the republicans. He even tried letting the first year an administration was in power count for the previous administration (because the first year, you’re still feeling the effects of the previous group). However, this did not change the correlation at all. Either way, Democrats were better for the economy across the board. If you want a job in the next few years, vote democrat! For that matter, if you don’t want more of your civil liberties and “unalienable” rights violated, vote democrat. Granted, Kerry is a pretty bad candidate. However, Bush is quite possibly the worst president this country has ever had. This must not be allowed to continue!

Looks like we’re back in the dark ages…

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040308&c=1&s=kennedy
Fucking Bush Administration. I’ve been following this for a while, but this article is a pretty good way to sum it all up (in a lengthy, not-so-summed-up sort of way). The Bush Administration has basically been saying “if the facts don’t agree with us, change the facts.” This is rather obvious with the situation in Iraq, the economy, and the US environmental policy (did you know that it is now legal to deposit mercury in landfills?). However, many people don’t seem to know that the administration has also been outright lying about science. Please, read this article, and spread the word to others! Most people don’t know that this is going on because they trust their government to tell them the truth (which, up until recently, has been a great thing to do. I hope I can trust it again soon).

It seems like every week, I read something new about how the current government is completely screwing up this country. For instance, the Supreme Court ruled a few weeks ago that it is legal for law enforcement to demand to see your ID, even if you are not suspected of any crime, and arrest you if you do not comply. The pertinent article is here. This sort of thing has happened before, but only in countries like the USSR, Hussein’s Iraq, and Nazi Germany.

It just makes me sick. When I graduate, if I can find a job outside the US, I will almost certainly take it. Everyone – whether or not you agree with me, learn what is going on in this country, and then vote in the upcoming election!! Don’t vote for someone because your parents (or neighbors, or government) say you should. Learn what is going on, learn who is doing what about it, and make up your own mind.